The investigation into the crash of PK8303 began recently. Two passengers survived the crash with the remaining approximately 100 passengers and crew members perishing in the incident. According to the CEO of PIA, Arshad Malik, the pilot reported a problem with the engines and failed to land on the first attempt. He then attempted to rise and make a second landing by turning around, upon which the plane failed to gain appropriate altitude and crashed in to some houses of Model Colony. Preliminary investigations suggest that the plane’s fuel pumps may have been damaged during the first failed landing attempt, contributing to the crash. Concerns have also been raised of the pilot’s insistence on maintaining a high altitude close to the time of landing, even after air traffic control requested him to lower it. However, these reports are still rife with confusion and what exactly transpired as Airbus A320 crashed is still unknown.
This is only the second worst aviation disaster in the country’s last decade and it is the high number of aviation incidents since 2010 that has shed new light on the aviation safety in Pakistan. While preceding decades saw crashes such as the PIA Boeing 707 crash at Cairo airport that killed 124, Planecrashinfo.com describes how modern systems of air travel have reduced the risk of catastrophic crashes significantly. India has had no deadly plane accidents since an Air India flight overshot on the runway in 2010. Given that there are a significantly larger number of flights that take place daily across the large territory of India, their aviation safety record ranks better than Pakistan’s.
The CAA has a Safety Investigation Board that investigates and reports fatal aviation incidents. In many of its reports over the last few years including the Multan 2006 crash of a PIA flight, the Airblue Airbus 321 crash at Margalla hills near Islamabad in 2010 and the 2012 Bhoja Airlines crash, it has cited the same reasons and given the same recommendations: errors on the part of the flying team, to be remedied by better training. The report for the aforementioned Airblue flight was released by the Civil Aviation Authority in 2012 and assigned the main responsibility of the crash to the pilots’ inability to navigate the clouded hills after they flew into the hilly area upon the instruction of air traffic control.
The report did not provide on any recommendations on addressing any structural causes behind the crash. Some commentators suggest that the age of the senior pilot, Pervez Iqbal and the inexperience of the co-pilot was a poor combination for the flight. Pilots cannot serve beyond the age of 65 years and Mr. Iqbal had retired from the PIA four years ago. The use of senior pilots by private airlines continues, and it is worth asking if our pilots are adequately trained to handle difficult piloting at advanced ages.
The captain of the Shaheen Air flight that made a crash landing in November 2015 was reported to have been under the influence of alcohol, which inhibited his concentration and decision-making. A PIA pilot flying from the UK to Pakistan in 2013 was apprehended when he attempted to takeoff despite being strongly under the influence. While these may be isolated incidents, perhaps they point to a lack of professionalism and observance of protocol when it comes to our airline carriers.
Aircraft safety itself has become a question for PIA and the CAA. The financial troubles of the carrier have inevitably created shortcomings within regulation and maintenance. At the end of 2018, the airline had a debt of 3.3 billion USD and continued facing competition from Emirati airlines which could fly multiple flights between the UAE and Pakistan daily. It also has one of the worst employee to flight ratios in the world, indicating overstaffing due to political interference, further adding to its financial costs. It has reduced its flying over unprofitable routes and currently has 32 aircraft functioning with an average age of 13.3 years.
The recent plane crash could also have been contributed to by the existence of informal and unplanned housing around the runway boundaries. The houses made a safer crash landing outside of the runway virtually impossible. Falling onto built structures increased the likelihood of explosion and fire after the plane crashed. Had the pilot been able to attempt a ‘belly-landing’ on empty land, the damage and casualties may have been reduced. There are unconfirmed reports that the plane also struck a mobile tower as it struggled in the air and that this may have helped veer it off course.
This is less an aviation issue and reflects a greater problem of urban planning and management. Airports around the world rarely have housing built so close to airport runways. Karachi’s urban sprawl has been left virtually unchecked due to a myriad of complicated factors such as poor governance, corruption, land-grabbing and high population density. That the CAA has been unable or unwilling to bring this issue to the attention that it needs is reflective of governing bodies lacking the foresight or the capital to raise safety concerns that have difficult solutions.
Other unconfirmed reports suggest that PIA engineers had reported issues with the aircraft before and on the day of the departure but no actions were taken. It is difficult to ascertain if this is a repeated occurrence in flights that face difficulties because investigations are rarely thorough unless accidents are fatal. Apart from fatal accidents, PIA flights face emergency landings and poor takeoffs at a higher rate than other airlines as well. There seems to be inadequate investigations and research into finding the issues that cause these recurrences.
Problems appear concentrated within our national carrier as opposed to private airlines. As recent as 2019, the International Air Trade Association verified that the National Aviation Policy the country followed was in line with international safety standards and protocols. The issues lie in applying those regulation and following up on shortcomings. A financial and organizational reformation of PIA is essential in preventing such incidents repeating in the future, Also see rise and fall of PIA. Corruption, mismanagement due to political interference and financial problems are inevitable contributors to these accidents because they cause the entire structure to suffer, causing key problems to be regularly overlooked and depriving the organization of an efficient plan to tackle them.
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